


Endless Forms Most Beautiful

by Neverly_Moore



Category: Orphan Black (TV), Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Awesome Molly, Awesome Molly Hooper, BAMF Molly, Badass Felix, Clones, Creepy Moriarty, Depressed Sherlock, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, M/M, Molly Hooper Appreciation, Mystery, Orphan Black AU, Possessive Sherlock, Protective John, Romance, Sad Sherlock, Science Fiction, Sherlock Being Sherlock, Sherlock Being an Idiot, Sherlock Is A Bit Not Good, Sherlock Series 3 Spoilers, Suspense, clone club - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-23
Updated: 2014-10-28
Packaged: 2018-01-09 16:59:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 19,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1148560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neverly_Moore/pseuds/Neverly_Moore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Molly's role in Sherlock's "fall" has not been overlooked this time around and this time, it seems logical to get rid of her first. But both Sherlock and Moriarty alike still underestimate the young pathologist. It turns out that in fact, Molly Hooper is one of the greatest mysteries of all, and she only just figuring out how that is. </p><p>Yet another fake death leads to a new conspiracy and this time, for once, Molly is a part of something important that has nothing to do with Sherlock. Of course, that never stopped him from butting in anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Natural Selection

1 Hour After  
Felix's hands shook as he took the blood stained clothes and personal effects from the sympathetic morgue attendant (he was cute, definitely his type). He signed off on them, his signature veering slightly, only straying to take a peek at them when he was sitting on a bus, already well on its way to Brixton. A dress, a pair of shoes, a bag with her wallet, phone, and a few files from work. When this was done, he leaned back in his seat, dialing the number scrawled down hastily by his friend before she left—before she died. A man with an Irish lilt Felix only knew too well answered.

"Hello?"

"You bloody bastard, she actually did it. M-Molly's dead." It was then that he broke down, crying as James Moriarty hung up, getting strange looks from the others on the train as he tried to conceal it.

3 Hours After

No one knew precisely what caused Molly Hooper to throw herself in front of an oncoming train in the tubestation.

John thought it was because she did exhibit signs of depression beforehand.

Her coworkers (primarily the nurses and interns) thought it was because of her failed engagement.

Mike Stamford thought it was because Moriarty had returned only twenty-four hours ago and she couldn't handle it.

Sherlock…Sherlock didn't know precisely what he thought (incredibly rare, he was aware) as he stood there, staring at the mangled body of Molly Hooper, the sheet taken down enough to show her face, but without sacrificing modesty. Lestrade had already made the identification and her friend had already been by to pick up the clothes and other personal items. Sherlock didn't know why he was there—how he got there required a trip in his mind palace to figure it out, it was all completely without thought—except to see that Molly Hooper really and truly was dead. Somehow, Sherlock was having trouble computing this knowledge, when something so straightforward was usually meant with instantaneous processing. It was definitely her face, though marred with new cuts from being thrown on the tracks; it was definitely her body structure, though maimed by impact. Unless Molly had a twin—doubtful as she was an only child with a loving family, deceased as well—then there was no doubt that Molly Hooper, Sherlock's pathologist and trusted friend, was lying on the cold slab before him.

Molly was dead and the last thing he said to her was much more than a bit not good.

12 Hours Before

Molly Hooper sat in her best friend's flat again, drinking red wine while Felix painted her, completely in shades of red. What had he called it? A monochrome, yes that was it, Molly wasn't an artist, so she didn't have that firm grasp on all the terms for everything. Then again, she doubted that Felix could name every single bone and muscle in the hand, let alone the entire body. He didn't even know what ligaments were. She smiled. She missed having evenings like this. But between her shifts and Felix's less dignified day job, she couldn't get to the flat above a chop shop as much as she would have liked. There was nothing quite like watching the tattooed and pierced out newcomers raising eyebrows at the little woman in the sunshine yellow jumper dashing up the stairs on her way to a gay male prostitute's residence. It was sad, but her friendship—they were almost like siblings—was the only lasting relationship she could lay claim to. Everyone else came and went, but Felix never left her.

"Molly, if you don't tell me what's causing that silly frown right this instant, I'm going to become very cross with you." Felix sat beside her, flicking her nose with a paint coated finger.

She shook her head, trying to focus on what she was there for, rubbing the red from her nose before she forgot about it and made an absolute fool of herself. It wasn't to be sad and it wasn't to reminisce. It was to try to figure out what to do, "Felix…do you remember that detective I told you about?"

"Sherlock Holmes? Easy on the eyes? Complete bastard? Has a slower resurrection than Jesus, but a little more permanent?" Felix ticked it off as if he were on a game show, having obviously not seen how upset Molly really was.

"Yeah…."

"What about him?"

She hadn't told her of her involvement in Sherlock's seeming miraculous return and she supposed that this wasn't exactly a brilliant time to bring it up, "An—an enemy of his is back." She shuddered, remembering that man, that horrible, horrible man that blew up old ladies and—no past, that definitely won't be happening again.

"Moriarty, the psycho Irishman and your—"

"Don't finish that." Molly snapped, dropping the glass and covering her face as it shattered, "S-sorry."

The glass went ignored, "What's wrong, Molly?"

"I—I sort of talked to him—to J—I mean Moriarty. He…he uh knows that…I am a friend of Sherlock's…an actual proper friend." Felix didn't need to know about it after all.

"WHAT?! What did he say, what does he want with you?"

"I—I have to—to kill myself."

"Absolutely—absolutely not—that's fucking mad, do you understand? You—"

"He says if I don't—he's going to kill you and he's going to blow up an office building…that's so many people Felix…so many people. I'm your only connection to Sherlock Holmes so if I'm gone he'll lose interest and—"

"Molly! NO!" Molly decided that the rest of their discussion would be on the streets, exchanged in whispers, wary of strangers, no matter how harmless they appeared. For if Moriarty knew her dear friend Felix, he would no doubt be above placing a few bugs in his flat.

4 hours after

It was child's play getting into Molly's flat—he almost considered reminding Molly to get better locks before he realized that she never would be able to—and after the note, he knew he could only try to figure out the puzzle Moriarty wanted him to solve—that is, without Moriarty knowing that Molly gave him an edge. Even now, James Moriarty underestimated Molly Hooper. To think, he probably thought that in getting rid of her, he was getting rid of one of Sherlock's advantages…which was true to an extent. However, Sherlock was also angry, oh incredibly angry, a rage that he never felt before at the thought of Molly…stiff…unmoving….FOCUS.

He found her laptop and used the password she had written (clever, unexpected) to get into her computer, opening one of the video files on her laptop.

Suddenly Molly was there—well not really, but it was a sort of relief to watch her twisting her hair nervously about her fingertip before speaking, adjusting the camera to make sure it was right.

"So…uhm…hi…I suppose. I'm sorry; I don't really know how to make these. I suppose not having much experience making suicide notes is a good thing…heh." Molly gave a short abrupt laugh, "Well uhm I suppose not much is funny to whoever's watching this, I've never been good at making jokes. I just—well Sherlock it's probably you watching this! Hi!" She ran a hand through her hair—nerves, exhaustion, stress, pain, fear—"I'd like you to know that…I'm not everything you think I am…I have never been. I—I don't need you. And Felix, dear? You'll be fine without me. So…that's it…goodbye."

The clip ended and left Sherlock clueless.

10 hours before.

Molly shivered, wrapping her arms around herself as she looked up at the cameras around her, sure that someone—Mycroft most likely, would see the horrifying events that would come to pass—that is unless she did it out of sight of the cameras. Doubtful, as Mycroft Holmes seemed to have eyes everywhere. Moriarty emerged, sitting on the park bench next to her, two coffees in hand. She ignored his offer, instead opting to look away and try to focus.

"You will do it of course…stupid sentimental woman." His voice took on a mocking tone.

Molly resisted the urge to imitate him, "How?"

"How did I know—"

"No, how will I die?" Molly bit back the insult that she drew close to actually saying, but she was pretty sure he knew she was about to call him an idiot.

He smirked, gesturing towards the camera he had his back to and the children playing on the swings "Well that's the glory of it; you get to choose, Molly Hooper. You get to choose exactly how you die, as long as there's no one there to watch."

"Why not?"

"I don't want anyone to describe to Sherlock your facial expressions as being more akin to fear rather than pain—and it has to be pain, Molly Hooper." Moriarty gave a giggle. Molly in turn resisted the urge to shudder.

"What about cameras?"

"My boys will black them out ahead of time. Don't even think about trying to get away. If your body is not on a slab when Felix comes by, then the deal's off." He sneered, "I'll be checking too."

"Fifteen million pounds—"

"He will suddenly receive a combination of cash, new accounts, grants, an unusually large life insurance claim from you, and a large sum from a patron of the arts." Moriarty cut her off, "Don't worry, everything is in place, Miss Hooper."

"The only reason I'm bothering to think you're telling the truth is that you actually followed through with the cabby's family."

"The money will insure that Felix's involvement will cease to exist after this. I'm assuming he'll probably run off somewhere people don't know him and start up under a different name or something. He'll forget you in no time. That's the thing about those street tramps, Molly Hooper; they just don't got the loyalty." He giggled, poking her nose, "So what are you going to do?"

4 Hour After

The first thing Sherlock did was tear through Molly's locker, looking for any possibility, as it was oddly untouched by her friend—Felix—why would she have been friends with a man like him? He filed the information under 'suspicious' and continued wrecking her locker, finding nothing of consequence except—except a note written clearly in Molly's gentle script, calmly with a time and date—four minutes after he had blown up at her—and he found himself slowly opening it.

Moriarty is back and I don't blame you xMolly

Laptop password: rT24drstb613sA

This note did nothing to quell the—guilt, yes precisely, it was guilt gnawing at him as he examined her room in his mind palace, a room with an off white door and only the label 'Molly' on it and he found himself unable to move as John pried the crumpled note from his grasp and read it, his eyes widening.

"Do you think she—"

"She wouldn't have thrown herself in front of a train of her own volition." Sherlock growled, "She knew the likelihood of cameras in the lockers was low, knew I would go through here, and this—this is her real note."

6 Hours Before

Molly paced back and forth while on her shift, despite the fact that she had plenty of things she could have been doing, all she could think about was death and dying and money and what it meant to really truly be dead. She also, oddly enough, wondered who would take care of her cat. Felix was allergic and would probably abandon ship in the coming months but—but that wasn't the concern now, was it? She was going to die, she was really going to die, and she, for her life of her could not figure out a way out. There was no way out, nothing short of a miracle could save her.

3 Hours Before.

Molly's teeth were chattering in her mouth and her hands were shaking so much that she dropped a petri dish, much to Sherlock's displeasure. He had been in a foul mood since his four minute banishment and return. She knew that he was antsy, wondering if this was really Moriarty—confirmed, Molly should mention that at some point—and when he would strike next. Molly stared blankly at the shattered dish, feeling the air in the room suddenly become very stifling.

"Molly, I had assumed you weren't completely useless, but judging by your current state, you're upset by something and it's affecting your work."

"W-would it kill you to ask?" She mumbled.

"I didn't catch that."

"Would. It. Kill. You. To. Ask. Me. What's. Wrong. Like. A. Normal. Person?" Molly annunciated every word carefully for the consulting detective.

"Frankly, I don't care what's wrong; I just wish you could actually be competent for once."

At least she now knew that her cat would be in the safe hands of her neighbor. She addressed that in a video she made, leaving it on her desktop. A woman like Molly would leave a note after all. That was different though. While she pretended to sulk in the locker room, she scrawled a note and threw it into her locker beneath one of her spare lab coats. Hopefully her real note would not be intercepted.

2 Hours Before

Molly paced back and forth along the train platform, trying to get a little warmed up. It was only a couple minutes before the next train would come racing down the tracks and she was utterly terrified. Beside her, she had placed her bag where it could easily be found, knowing that an identification would be easily made. As promised, when Molly looked up at the cameras surrounding her, they were all manually blacked out. How convenient. No one would see her contemplating life before the midnight train before she threw herself in front of it. But that was when she saw her.

Another woman, down past a payphone and a few columns, paced in front of the map, tearing at her hair, stomping out of her elegant—Christopher Louboutin, pretty and easily identifiable, but impractical and way out of Molly's self-imposed budget—shoes. Molly found herself gravitating towards this woman, somehow coming to the conclusion that she was planning on doing precisely the same thing. It was just her luck to have another jumper trying to butt in on her (albeit forced) suicide. The time ticked down in her head as she drew closer about to put a hand on her shoulder to calm the woman when unexpectedly, she turned around and Molly saw—herself. It was a woman with a face exactly like hers, down to the nose, and hair that was colored a bit darker and quite a bit neater, but it was the same grain. The copy's lined and puffy eyes were dull and unhappy, barely registering Molly, and oddly enough she wasn't surprised to see a woman with a face exactly like her own.

Molly opened her mouth to speak, but the train came, and she could only watch as her doppelganger flung herself in front of it. Everything screeched to a stop as the doppelganger's boy was tossed to the front of the tracks like a rag doll. For a moment, Molly stood there stunned. But then she remembered her predicament, her missed opportunity, the covered cameras and…oh.

Present

Molly Hooper stood before a hotel she had never seen before and was greeted by a doorman who she apparently had a long conversation with about London's pollution.

One Minute After

Most genius plans took time to develop; some years of careful planning, but every once in a while, a person could be struck with a most extraordinary idea that simply worked. Molly didn't have much time to marvel on the plan as she rushed to take off her flats, grab the doppelganger's purse and shoes and ran into the lady's room. There, Molly took down her hair and tossed her coat into the bin, throwing a wad of paper towels over it. In a stall, she applied lipstick she found in the woman's purse carefully—bright red, a shade Molly only dared to have on once—and some eyeliner, heavier than she would have made it. Her shirt was plain and green and wholly unimaginative—a very un Molly like gift from a well-meaning Felix. Quickly she rifled through the purse some more discovering its contents.

More makeup than Molly had owned in the past year.

Two cell phones, one of which was a burner—suspicious, but useful.

Seven hundred in cash—useful

A wallet with an ID—who was Elizabeth Childs and why did she look exactly like her?—A question for later—

A passport—She was Canadian?

A hotel key card—tourist, no a couple notes and texts from her boyfriend, he was there for work and she was along for the ride.

A couple voicemails, he was worried—the other mobile had three missed calls—not her problem not yet.

…Felix! Wait! The clothes—if Sherlock or Moriarty saw the clothes then this would be for nothing. She slipped on the shoes and undid a couple buttons on her shirt before emerging. The woman who came out of the stall looked very little like the woman who came in. Molly suddenly looked quite a bit like this Elizabeth Childs, the heels holding her to a new height, the lipstick making her mouth look much larger, and the eyeliner making her eyes less buggish. She shuddered and proceeded to walk out of the loo with head slightly bent; focusing on her phone as she was walking in order to avoid any cameras that might not have been blacked out—at least she could say that dealing with Sherlock had been a proper education.

Present

Unbeknownst to her mourning friends, Molly Hooper sat in her hotel room—No Elizabeth Childs did, not Molly Hooper, Molly Hooper was dead. Luckily her iPad (passwords to everything in notes on phone, Elizabeth Childs made Molly Hooper look like a genius) had loads of videos of Elizabeth—Beth—Molly corrected herself—and presumably her boyfriend talking to each other—his name was Paul he worked at a firm, Molly could do this, just to get out of the country mainly, the money would help, even without the money she could skate by as Beth until hopefully—until Sherlock beat Moriarty. Molly could only hope that Sherlock learned his lesson about playing with his food.

Until then, Molly had a few things to do in the few hours she had before Paul returned and they went to Canada—together. This was an odd thought. Molly never went travelling with a boyfriend before…then again, she never took a suicide victim's identity and ran with it. All of this was a learning experience.

"You're damn right." Beth on the screen said as she was practicing for her marathon—marathon? The woman did marathons? Shit, Molly might actually have to get into shape.

"You're d-damn, you're damn—" She practiced it as she colored her hair a shade darker (what sort of obsessive woman brings a dye kit with her on a trip? She probably didn't trust London's salons…fair point) "You're damn—you're damn right. You're damn right!" Molly declared almost gleefully, moving on to every other phrase that Beth Childs uttered.

Everything was going fine until—disaster.

"Look Beth." Paul's voice came through the speaker, as Molly tried to pack her scrambled brains into one place and simply keep from outright panicking, "The meeting's gonna go on for longer than expected a couple days longer, since we're having a hard time coming to an agreement—"

"Ah damn." Molly had no idea what this meant. Did this mean they would have to linger longer than she would want to? Long enough for Moriarty to figure her out?

It seemed to be an appropriate response, "Yeah and I know you're kinda bored here, so I think you should go ahead and go home."

"Oh okay."

"Love you."

"Yeah, you too." Molly replied distractedly, her accent almost slipping as she hung up the phone, her mind already rushing ahead to everything else she had to do before she hopped on that morning flight. The pink mobile that she previously ignored rang. Molly ignored it and called Felix's mobile from the burner "Felix. Felix it's me—"

"Oh thank—"

"Shut up and listen to me. Get my clothes before Sherlock Holmes comes. He'll know right away they're not mine. The pathologist will cut them away from my body. Get them and burn them. Collect your money, wait a week, go to somewhere random and then go to Toronto Canada. Tell no one. Act distraught but distracted by the money."

"Yes, Wendi, I've got the next shipment in." Felix's voice lifted and was suddenly quite flirty, indicating another presence, "Sorry, love, gotta trot." He hung up, and Molly hoped and prayed that first off, the signal would be difficult to trace, and secondly no one would bother to try and intercept that message even if they could.

Molly paced back and forth, waiting for her hair to dry as she packed up her clothing. She could do this; she had to. It was only until Moriarty was really and truly defeated. Then she could come back. Did Sherlock experience such fear and anxiety at the prospect of not returning for a long time? Probably not. Very little phased him and when it did, it didn't leak through to the surface all at once…although she had seen him once before when he was very distressed…Molly thought that she might be having a taste of how that felt. She took in one final shuddering breath as she walked into the airport terminal as Beth Childs, a woman dressed with class and taste that Molly Hooper didn't possess. She wasn't Molly Hooper anymore.


	2. A Moral Being

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Molly delves deeper into the life of Beth Childs, Sherlock unexpectedly finds himself mourning her loss.

Molly sat on the airplane in business class, wearing a dark and sleek suit—what on Earth did Beth do for a living?—her hands trembling slightly as she obtained a glass of water and leaned slightly against the window. She jumped as a man slid in next to her—probably harmless, but she could never truly tell. James Moriarty seemed harmless at one point. He seemed safe. So she gave a small waning smile to the man and took a sip.

"Didn't mean to startle you there, love."

She worked up her accent, it was getting better with practice, "Oh no, it's fine. Sorry."

"American then?"

"Canadian actually."

"Can't seem to spot the difference to save my life."

Molly grinned, "Oh that's easy. We apologize a lot, put gravy on our fries, and really the best indicator is that we call that—" She gestured towards the loo near the back, "—the washroom."

"Oh thanks uhm—"

"Beth." Molly held out her hand to shake.

"Anthony."

"Nice to meet you." For the first time in her life, Molly decided to be completely and utterly rude to the attractive stranger sitting next to her. Beth Childs was a woman with a rich boyfriend, after all, not a desperate little pathologist who panics about her biological clock despite having no wish to reproduce. Molly was also an Un-Person in the way, no longer able to be Molly Hooper, but not quite Beth Childs either. She would have to find out why exactly that was, once she knew Moriarty and Sherlock were distracted and a world away.

Present

Funerals had a tendency to bore Sherlock. He had no religious affiliations, he didn't understand the point of a bunch of sad people gathering around a corpse or a pile of ashes, and it made it incredibly easy to figure out the idiotic culprits. Molly's funeral, however, was different. Molly always struck him as the type to have few friends and fewer family members, but he found that there were so many present that many were regulated to standing in the back. Lestrade and every member of the police force that ever interacted with her were there, several nurses, interns, doctors, all sat in a large clump and then there were the people that looked quite a bit like her friend Felix Dawkins, all lower class, less educated, but all quite sympathetic. It was a large turnout for what Felix said would have to be, 'the quick sort of affair someone as modest as Molly would like.' He still couldn't figure out her connection to him—let alone a deep lifelong friendship.

"Molly was my best friend." Felix sat down beside him after saying a few short words, answering the question before it could be asked, "We were in care together after her Dad died. She was eleven. All I saw at first was a little middle class brat that only had one thing ever go wrong in her life…but she didn't linger on it. In fact, she rarely ever seemed sad at all, just a cheerful little girl with a sick fascination with death. And she was smart, so smart…. Listen our foster parents—they weren't kind. At all. The lady was spending all our care money on drinks and her husband had a nasty habit of knocking us around."

Sherlock's fist clenched at the idea of someone hitting Molly, she didn't deserve something like that for a moment, "Go on."

Felix took a deep, shuddering breath, "One night he tried to—well rape me I suppose, I dunno what was going through his head, but Molly stabbed him in the neck with some scissors. The lady lied, putting up this great big story and I decided that since Molly was smarter, and Molly was kinder, and Molly did it to save me, that I'd take the blame."

"Hence your criminal record."

"Yes. Molly was furious…but we've been best friends ever since. You wanted to know."

"And how did you know that?"

"Everyone wants to know." Felix gestured towards himself and flipped his hair, "How a hottie like me could be friends with a smarty like her."

Present

Molly absentmindedly sniffed the soap in the loo—washroom—washroom—it was sandalwood, nothing like the lavender scents she used. It was yet another thing about herself she had to strip away, leading her to step into the shower of Beth Child's townhouse, spending a long time under scalding hot water, trying to wash away an old life, and trying to think of all the ways that Beth could be identified as herself and not Molly. If Molly had been the pathologist on duty, she would have run prints simply to be thorough, but it would only be those of the UK and Europe. They would realize something was messed up with her on record fingerprints, and still cite a positive identification. She didn't even know if DNA would show enough of a difference; obviously she and Beth were from the same stock.

1 Minute Before

It took Sherlock three hours to figure out all that he had said wrong and to figure out that he still didn't know why Molly was upset. She really wasn't that clumsy of an individual and she seemed...terrified. He came to the conclusion that he should apologize and gather information a moment later and spent the thirty minute cab ride to her flat trying to formulate it. Something acceptable had come to mind by the time that he made it to Molly's flat, but when he knocked, he got no response. Sherlock assumed that she was asleep, and decided to pick the lock to come in. it was vacant obvious by the lack of coat hanging over the chair and the unfed cat rubbing against Sherlock's legs. Sherlock looked around before clicking the "Play" button on her answering machine after finding four messages.

"Oi! Molly! You're no picking up your mobile! Answer I need to talk to you!"

"Molly, you were supposed to show up an hour ago, where are you? You really scare me when you do this, you know. If you're sleeping, I'm going to kill you tomorrow. You aren't seriously going to do it are you? You're really psyching me out"

"…Okay Molly, you never go this long without even a text. I've called you eight times! I'm going to get a bunch of acne from this! I feel the redness! I feel the bumps on my skin rising."

"Shite, shite, bloody shite, Molly pick up right now. Just pick up right now, I need to hear your voice. God FUCKING damn it , pick up the bloody phone!"

Sherlock was most shocked by the panic the man was displaying in the last of the messages. He was in his twenties or thirties, obviously gay and from Brixton, and particularly familiar with Molly. Before he could ponder it further, he received a call from Lestrade, "Sherlock...Molly Hooper has committed suicide. She threw herself in front of a train."

For one single moment in time, everything in Sherlock's mind raced to a screeching halt. He didn't know how he got to the hospital (Logically, anyone with a few brain cells to rub together could hail a taxi, walk down a familiar path to the morgue and see—see her laying there with blank eyes like she was just another body, just another mystery. He stood there for a long time, aware of, but unable to process the whispers of Anderson and Donavan. At some point, he would be brave enough to draw those from memory, but for the moment, that part of his mind palace remained darkened.

Present

Molly sorted through the clothes she had. For the most part, they seemed posh but boring, tending towards dark and drab colors like gray and black. A lot of Beth Child's clothing were quite suitable for racing about the city, with low heeled and practical shoes outnumbering the designer heels. She searched through, looking for more clues, trying to act like Sherlock in a way, looking for the tiniest of details. Like Molly, Beth seemed to be a bit particular about cleaning, but didn't have the taste for brightly colored jumpers. There was a picture of her and Paul on the refrigerator, finally giving her more than a blurry picture of his face to his name. He was cute, but not quite her type, with blond hair trimmed short and a general look about him that screamed military of some kind. Maybe it was just that he reminded her of John.

Sighing, Molly sank to the floor right there in the kitchen with a bottle of whiskey next to her. What was she doing? She couldn't do something so simple as talk to Sherlock without stumbling the first couple years of her existence, why the hell did she think she could pull off making him—and everyone else she knew—think she was dead? For all she knew, Felix could be a worse actor than she thought, and she had actually been given away right away. But if that were true, something would have happened. Molly was sure of that. Moriarty wouldn't allow her to believe that she had outsmarted him for long. He would hate to give anyone that sort of surge of superior feeling over him.

She hoped.

Present

"Sherlock, I think you should try going outside." John was worried. Sherlock had a case and yet all he was doing was sitting there, simply staring at the wall. This wasn't the time for the supposed and totally not high functioning sociopath to break down like any other man would. John knew he was being selfish, but he had a child on the way and he wanted the Moriarty problem to end as quickly as possible especially after…Molly.

Yes, Molly was the reason for Sherlock's almost complete lack of action, John knew this. At first, Sherlock had been in a mad frenzy, but then it seemed that once he realized that nothing would change the fact that Molly's body was sitting in a drawer in the morgue he shut down. There was no searching for Moriarty, or trying to figure out how to defeat him, there was just silence. John found it absolutely maddening and so…so oddly normal.

"Sherlock, when's the last time you ate?"

No response.

"Sherlock? Sherlock? I need you to tell me—"

"She is a competent pathologist." Nothing but the bare minimum of movement from Sherlock's mouth told John that he had actually spoken out loud, and that John hadn't just imagined it.

"Yes, Sherlock, she was the best, that's why you worked with her." John nodded, settling on the sofa beside Sherlock.

"Therefore, what I told her, or at least what I implied was a lie." Oh, that had been the last thing he said to her.

"She knows—knew—how you can be."

"A replacement will be nearly impossible to find."

"A replacement pathologist or replacement Molly?"

"A replacement Molly would be impossible." Sherlock snapped.

"Yes—yes of course—"

"Molly Hooper is too cheerful, she has terrible taste in clothing and men alike, she spends most evenings home alone with her cat and she either says too much or too little, she panics at inopportune times, and she decided to go out and find a fiancé that bore a striking resemblance to myself! She is annoying!"

"Sherlock—the engagement's been off, you know that—and what does that have to do with—?"

"John! I do not need food or comfort or whatever you've come here to thrust upon me, I am thinking! I am thinking! I need to stop him before—but it's too late at the same time all I can do from here is damage control and he's ruined everything. Things were finally going to go back precisely where they want them before!"

After being on the receiving end of a bit more shouting, John left, realizing a couple of things as he slipped into the taxi.

Sherlock refused to speak about Molly in the past tense. (Denial: Confirmed)

Sherlock was obsessing over Molly's engagement. (Suspicion: Confirmed)

Sherlock was definitely going to do something about Moriarty, and there wouldn't be games this time.

John didn't know what this meant. He doubted he would like the man Sherlock would become without him to keep him company or without Molly. It was heartbreaking, really, seeing how close they had become. James Moriarty had obviously seen this. More than ever, John simply wanted to shoot him in the head himself.-

Three Weeks Before

Molly and Sherlock sat in the lab in a companionable silence. She was doing her supremely dull paperwork while Sherlock was working on some sort of experiment that she hadn't had the proper chance to look at yet. While Sherlock knew that even Molly had some boundaries when it came to the lab, she still wanted to make sure that the likelihood of something blowing up (literally or otherwise) was relatively low. Her superiors still didn't like the idea of Molly being Sherlock's go to pathologist after the whole dead-not-dead incident. She tried not to let Sherlock know how much trouble she would be in if it weren't for his brother, but she was pretty sure he knew or didn't really care to know anyway.

"I'm making coffee." Molly stood up, stretching her hand, trying to shake the soreness from it, "Want any?"

Sherlock made a noncommittal grunt that she supposed was a yes and Molly left, returning with both. She placed his coffee next to him and returned to her stool, picking up where she left off. Oddly enough, this was more comfortable than anything she ever did with Tom, bordering on the absolutely shameless openness she shared with Felix. What drew her to Sherlock was the way he didn't flinch when she spoke of gathering tissue samples. He didn't care that she could chatter all day on the subject of stab wounds but could barely string together a sentence in the form of small talk. Sadly, he didn't care about her either. Not really anyway, certainly not in the way that mattered. But it was still comfortable, sitting there.

If Molly could, she would have times where she didn't speak for days.

Present

The pink burner phone was ringing again. Its tone drove Molly up the wall. For the most part, she could ignore it, but after a while, she knew she would have to pick it up. After all, until Felix could arrive with the money (if he got it at all) Molly had to be Beth. This included all of Beth's problems—like whatever led her to suicide. Slowly she picked it up.

"Did you meet with the German?"

"Huh?"

"Damn it Beth, what did she say did you get the briefcase?"

"I uhm—"

"So you didn't get it?" The voice sounded so much like Molly's but with a different accent that Molly couldn't quite place. It was either American or Canadian—definitely not British or Irish, she would be able to tell that one right away.

"No, no I didn't—"

Suddenly the line went dead.

What the hell had Molly gotten herself into?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second Chapter! Tell me what you think!


	3. To Waste One Hour Of Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Molly learns more about Beth as she goes deeper undercover. Sherlock and Moriarty meet.

Present-Molly  
Molly found it strange pretending to be Beth. It was like slipping into a different skin, one she wasn't entirely familiar with, but everyone else seemed to go on with their day. She knew it would be odd if Beth Child's credit and debit card activities ceased to be, but she didn't know her pin and only had two of her passwords. She didn't have anything on a newly opened account with a large sum of money in it and had to rectify that. Slowly and deliberately she dressed to impress, taking a look at herself in the mirror before speaking.

"Hello, Steven, how are you?"

Suddenly she was in the man's office, requesting a change in pin. Somehow, it had been demagnetized. Molly wasn't the sort to make a hypothesis on how this could have happened, but Steven was pleased enough to do so. She fished a key out of her bag and he was delightful enough to give her access to her safety deposit box. He even gave her a new account set up with completely different passwords and payment system, despite the fact that it was against the rules to do so without a load of paperwork, but she flashed a smile and offered to sponsor his next charity run. After that, she even managed to get half of it in cash—just in case. It felt strange, manipulating the innocent people around her.

"Hey Beth! Beth!" Who was this man? Darker complexion, older, cop car—shit, shit, shit, cop car? A cruiser? Molly squeaked as he manhandled her, tossing her into the car. She was grasping for an explanation, looking around when she finally found a piece of paper.

Arthur Bell.

Art.

He had been calling her constantly.

Oh.

"You left the country?!" He practically shouted, "They thought you were going to make a run for it!"

"No! No Art, of course not!"

"Then why'd you go?"

"Paul had a meeting and—"

"Didn't want to leave your tweaker ass?"

"I had permission!" Molly replied, remembering the strange notes attached to Beth's passport. It had frightened her at first, being stopped unexpectedly in each airport, but she realized in between that she was technically under investigation—apparently Beth Childs had shot a civilian…oh and Beth Childs was a cop. Molly only had a couple hours before Art was grabbing her on the street and she found herself in the car with him. There was no time to research, no time to prepare, Molly was grasping for straws just to answer his questions as they drove to a police station. She quickly requested to go to the washroom, and paced the length of the room for a moment. What the hell was she going to do? This was deep shit if there was such a thing. Wildly, Molly considered the fact that she could add "Impersonating a cop" to the steadily growing list of felonies and misdemeanors she was committing to save her own skin.

She stared at the soap dispenser, listing the ingredients of common public washroom soap in her mind as she reached for it, unscrewed the cap, and tipped it back to drink.

Present-Sherlock

Sherlock paced back and forth. Felix Dawkins had left the country, just as predicted. Mycroft traced his movement to Panama, where he stayed for a week before he moved on to Toronto. Toronto made sense. It had a good art scene, was fairly well priced, and he did have a foster mother there—Molly and Felix's foster mother. His throat closed up at the thought, however he waved it to the wayside. There was no time to do that. He was waiting for Moriarty to emerge to do something. There was nothing he could do for the man to initiate the game. When that happened, he wouldn't play; he would kill him. He couldn't afford to lose anyone else.

(Of course, that was completely unrealistic as Moriarty probably devised a contingency for that, nonetheless, everyone would be safe. Sherlock would make sure of that.)

Present-Molly

Already feeling queasy, Molly walked into the room full of rather frightening looking people, all in power suits, all ready to ask her what she did—and oh God, she didn't know. Slowly, Molly sank to her seat.

"State your name for the records."

Molly leaned forward, about to say 'Beth Childs' when instead she threw up, her sick getting everywhere. She found that Art was herding her away somewhere and soon she was tossed in a room with a psychiatrist. Molly knew her type almost immediately. She also immediately knew where all the prescriptions Beth Childs had in her cabinet were from. Felix always referred to psychiatrists like her as "Dr. Feelgoods" because they practically handed out the meds like candy. Molly herself was actually guilty of this. As a doctor, she could write prescriptions—even though she was just a pathologist, she had to take the same General Medicine courses as everyone else—to anyone she deemed necessary.

Molly paid for her medical school debts and specialization doing this as well as the down payment on Felix's chop shop. She had forgotten about putting this on the list. It was yet another criminal offense to add to the ever growing tally she had going in her head. To think, Mrs. S thought she had been the good kid.

Present-Sherlock

James Moriarty sat in Sherlock's flat, on Sherlock's sofa, holding a picture of Sherlock's late pathologist. It was a small wonder that Sherlock didn't go ahead and rip off the man's head for all he'd done. It would have made everything quick, short, and slightly less painful than it already was. Yet, Sherlock was sure that this time around, James Moriarty would have something to prevent him from drastic action.

"They will be able to act on my orders even if I die." Moriarty grinned, able to deduce Sherlock the way he did others. It annoyed him to no end—which was a reason why he tried a bit harder to keep his observations to himself. His mind immediately leapt to the day Molly slapped him—how he announced the ending of her engagement while he was still high with every part of his mind feeling like it had been tossed in a background. Sherlock winced. "Thinking about her are we?" Moriarty held up the photograph, "She was a pretty one, eh?"

"Name your game and your stakes."

"You're playing then?"

"I do not think I have a choice in the matter."

"Good. Well, I suppose now that this distraction is gone you'll be more motivated to play it like a good sport this time around."

Sherlock didn't tell him that Molly was still a distraction. He didn't wish to tell him that there was something off about her body. After Moriarty left, he regressed into his mind palace and began sorting through the day that he saw Molly Hooper on the slab. Finally Anderson and Donavan's whispers had returned to him, but he still couldn't look at Molly objectively despite all the information being there. He thought it was too quick to jump to the conclusion that it was all an elaborate trick, but that tiny bit of sentimental hope crept in on him nonetheless. It wasn't good to try and linger on such thoughts, especially when he had Moriarty's first clue, and especially when Sally Donavan pitied him.

"He actually looks sad."

Present-Molly

It was very tempting, but way too soon.

Molly remembered sitting on the playground growing up. To be exact, she sat on the swings, swaying back and forth gently as she watched everyone else play. She never really felt like she was a part of everything. Her family moved a lot, giving her plenty of chances to start over, but each time there was something about her that put people off her behavior. When her dad died, she was tossed into care and tossed around like a hot potato—eventually landing with Felix again. This time, it was different. She could tell from the start as she walked into a flat with faded blue walls and plenty of rock and roll albums. Mrs. S immediately laid down the law, proposing strict curfews and little room for protest. The first night, Felix and Molly thought they would be completely miserable, however Molly figured out how lucky they were first. Mrs. S spent her own money on them as well as the care money; she knew three languages and could help them with their maths, and she was actually kind enough to help Molly figure out bra sizes. For once, Molly felt loved for who she was and not for what she was supposed to be.

This did not, however, mean that Molly could barge into Mrs. S's Toronto house after six years of only communicating through letters. It was then that she realized that Moriarty had managed to fuck up again. If he had known about Mrs. S and Kira—no. No he doesn't therefore they will be safe and sound, especially now that Molly is dead. Molly somewhat regretted not taking the letters with her. She loved getting them from Kira especially. Her block letters and simply phrases had recently developed a better look and less spelling errors. Kira was a secret. Not even Sherlock knew about her. Molly hid the letters from Mrs. S and Kira among her receipts so that no one could state boredom as a reason for knowing about them. They had decided to remain separate, and separate they remained. Molly lasted another week, only distracted from going by new arrivals.

Paul was still out of town. The meeting got another extension, but he sent his friend to check on her from time to time; Cody, his name was. This coincided well with Felix finally arriving in all of his gusto, flinging his arms around her neck like he really thought she had been dead. He must not have really believed it, not really.

"You're going to have to talk to Mrs. S. It would make sense for you to want to reconnect and all of that crap and—"

"Molly, just tell me this. How the hell did you do this? Does he know? Is this some sort of sick game?"

"You know I've never been fond of games." Molly stared down into her glass before taking a sip. Beth and Paul kept good scotch. "I—well there was a girl who threw herself in front of the train. One who looked just like me. I didn't really think about it, I just ran with it. The lie got bigger and bigger and now I'm here." Molly didn't mention the strange phone calls or anything. She assumed that there was no big reason to dive too much deeper in Beth's life if they were just going to tear down, torch, and leave anyway.

"Fifteen million." Felix shook his head, "It took a while, but I managed to make the sum almost untraceable."

"Good. Nothing too big ticket, just some new papers, new identities, new everything. We could go to Montreal or New York. Or somewhere rural. As long as we don't draw attention to ourselves we can wait out Moriarty's downfall."

"You think Sherlock can do it? He did a shit job of it last time, you know."

"Of course he can do it." Molly replied automatically, forgetting herself, her accent returning to normal, "Oh…here I thought I wasn't forgetting it."

"More practice, darling." Felix leaned over and tapped her cheek.

Two days later, Molly stood on the doorstep, waiting anxiously for Mrs. S to open the door.

"Holy mother of God—you're not dead."

"And you said I had a habit of stating the obvious." Molly flashed a small smile, "May I come in?"

Moments later, the pair sat across from each other at a table, and Molly suddenly felt as if she was fourteen again and being interrogated for having a fag (not hers, but it didn't matter much to the woman) in her jumper pocket. Slowly, Molly leaned back, crossing her arms, "How's Kira?"

"She's doing well—I hadn't told her."

"Good. I hate for her to think her own mother's dead."

"She thinks you're her sister, remember?"

"Oh and you're her dear mummy and everything's fine and peachy, yeah?" Molly snorted, "I—I'm glad I kept my distance now. This was for the best."

"They told me you threw yourself in front of a train, Molly. I knew you couldn't have; you're too tough for that. Tell me what's going on, smart girl. Who are you running from?"

"An enemy of a friend got it in mind that I should die. I decided that was unfavorable. So everyone else I know thinks I'm dead, they don't know Kira exists—thanks for that, by the way, my entire life has been ruined and built up again, and oh! I'm pretending to be a cop."

"Molly—"

"Yeah, I know, I fucked up—"

"I'm glad you're all right."

Present-Sherlock

If it were up to Sherlock, he would announce that Mary picked an incredibly inconvenient time to go into labor; however, John made him very aware that his opinion was not welcome and would most likely be met with a greeting similar to his return. This left him sitting in the hall, watching as nurses and aids traveled by, carrying bits and pieces of their lives. Before the fall, Sherlock wouldn't have hesitated to leave. He would have probably would have drifted down to visit Molly and see if she had anything interesting for him. Or, in this case, he would have gathered more information from his homeless network and dare he say it—Mycroft. Sherlock scowled. Apparently with this new abundance of sentiment, he was incapable of removing Molly from his memory with any surgical precision. She couldn't be deleted and always emerged at the most inopportune times.

The doctor that just rushed by had a cat that was the same color as Molly's.

A woman visiting her sister had the exact same shade of hair.

Another woman had that same way of looking at her feet when she walked, as if afraid the floor would suddenly disappear—irrelevant.

Sherlock thought back to every detail he had figured out about Molly over the years. Usually, his mind palace made connections for him, but sometimes he had to sink deep within it and actively create passageways for more vague connections to be made. Three weeks before Molly threw herself on the tracks at Moriarty's command (no doubt friends and family were threatened. Sherlock cursed her bleeding heart—sentiment killed her) he noticed something new in their companionable silence. He never asked her about it, but the fact kept getting thrown in his face the more and more he learned about pregnancy and motherhood.

Molly's hips showed signs of having a child years ago, but nothing else about her seemed like she was a mother. She would have mentioned having a kid and would have often gone home and—oh. It was yet another quiet surprise about Molly, almost enough to distract him from the fact that his eyes had been drawn to parts of her other than her face and he couldn't use deduction as an excuse for it.

8 years before-Molly

Molly hadn't wanted to get pregnant. She was twenty-five, still in medical school, working long and hard towards her degree and specialization when the little plus sign told her that she was pregnant. At the time, it didn't seem like that great of a problem. While proud that she overcame being the care girl who got knocked up in high school, she still retained a great deal of apprehension towards her ability to raise a child. The months went by swimmingly and almost exactly at the nine month mark, Kira Marshall (after the idiot father) was born via cesarean section and promptly put in the care of Mrs. S. who later adopted her. While Molly was fiercely protective of the child, she really didn't think she had the maternal instincts that came along with it, nor the time.

When Mrs. S. decided to go live with her sister in Canada, Molly had no choice but to let them go, despite rather liking the title of 'Aunt Molly' despite her apparent "sister" status.

Present-Molly

Molly climbed out of the shower, pressing water from her hair with the towel when she heard the notable click of the front door being opened.

"Beth?"

Paul.

Shit.

Molly looked down at her phone and found that she received three texts and four missed calls while she was in the shower. She turned around and entered the closet trying not to cringe. This was a man who was the boyfriend of the woman she was impersonating. He would know Beth Childs more than anyone else. If anyone could tear down her illusion—aside from Sherlock or Mycroft—it was definitely this man. She turned around, smiling.

"Hey, I wasn't expecting you til tomorrow."

"Yeah, well, you know how unpredictable those meetings can be. Did you make your hearing? I told you you'd be able to get through on time—"

"Yeah—yeah I choked. Like bad."

"Bad?"

"I threw up on them."

"Oh." Molly moved past him, but on the way, Paul took a lock of her hair, "Your hair it's different."

"Yeah, I got it caught."

"It's longer."

Molly pushed down the bubbling panic and pretty much flung herself at him, knocking him back against the bed, kissing him as she straddled his lap. His response was at first confused and awkward—Molly panicked at the thought that he wasn't adequately distracted from his thought processes—but he soon embraced her, pulling on her hair. Her clothes soon followed—too rough, the part of her that was screaming that this was wrong and immoral yelled at her—well it's working isn't it? A darker, more sinister train that sounded suspiciously similar to a mixture of Sherlock and her teenage self snapped right back.


	4. Those Who Know Little

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay. Have a bit of good news! I have a job now! Jobs are good, jobs equal food and nice chats with the lovely gentleman who is also there. Even better is that it is around food that doesn't come out of a bag.

Present--Molly

Molly got up before Paul did, showering and shrugging on an unremarkable tank top and shorts before stuffing a bag. She had to go out, figure out what the hell she needed to get, who was on the other end of the line. She had a feeling that she knew who it was—at least in general. The chances of seeing a woman identical to herself tossing herself in front of a train—and then get a call from another woman who sounded exactly like her—she had a feeling it was something that most definitely wasn’t normal. Cloning maybe? That was a strange thought, wasn’t it? Being a human clone. Apparently no one had ever done it before, especially with the ethical issues that were tied to it. _As well as the dangerous side effects of being a copy._

A copy.

Was that all Molly was?

Well she wouldn’t know without all the information. Logically, she shouldn’t care. She shouldn’t care about the similarities or the possibility of the improbable. She should tear down and torch, taking Mrs. S, Kira, and Felix with her in one sweep. New names and new lives, far away from the lies of Moriarty and Beth Childs and the briefcase mentioned—but that couldn’t be possible. Molly was, after all, a scientist at heart. Scientists were known for their intelligence and great discoveries, however they were also known for their curiosity. Being the lab rat? Clones? Rare identical triplets or quadruplets? It was too good for a proper scientist to resist.

Sherlock—Present

There had been no activity from Moriarty. Nothing. It was as if the man wasn’t alive at all. Sherlock was impatient. He wanted to get this over with. It didn’t feel like a game to him anymore, it felt more like his mission of dismantling the web. Obviously he had missed several crucial details, and those details had cost Molly her life, but even then, that one didn’t seem right either. Something wasn’t right about her body at the morgue. It was her face, it was her hair—recently dyed a shade darker, but her hair nonetheless—but something wasn’t right and it was going to bother him until he figured it out.

He needed to smoke.

He needed to drink.

He needed—

Absolutely not. Definitely not after Molly’s reaction. He smiled fondly and winced at the same time, remembering the slapping.

 

Present—Molly

She was in the back of the car when the woman got in, wearing a horrendously furry coat and a pair of shades despite the poor lighting. When she took them off, Molly wasn’t exactly surprised to see that this face—while with dyed short red hair—was a mirror image of her own.

“Beth!” German accent. Bingo. “Why weren’t you responding I got the blood samples—“

“I’m not Beth. Beth committed suicide. My name’s Molly. Here by mistake. Tell me what the hell is going on, why are you here? What blood samples?”

“Y-you’re not Beth.”

“No I’m not—“

Molly was cut off by the sound of breaking glass and the sick thud of a bullet hitting flesh and bone. She shrieked, watching as the German fell back into her seat, obviously dead. She ducked down, but nothing occurred. There were no more shots. The German’s mobile started ringing. Quickly Molly answered it, “She’s dead, the German’s dead, she was shot.”

“Oh my God it’s true somebody’s killing us!”

Molly’s heartbeat increased steadily as she processed the situation. She was most likely a clone. Another clone came in rambling about a briefcase. This clone was German—international. Presumably another one was on the phone. Someone just assassinated the clone in the back of her car. This car wasn’t actually hers, but Beth’s, another clone that had committed suicide in the London underground. She was in even deeper shit than the Moriarty situation, and she wasn’t even trying.

“Look. I can get rid of the body, but shit—we’re going to have to meet—after I get that briefcase.”

Present—Sherlock

A woman with rather pale skin and drastic eyebrows sat before John Watson, as Sherlock took a greater interest in studying the web on the wall, trying to figure out where Moriarty might strike next. She was an on again off again smoker and alcoholic, had lost a child within the past ten years, and she was quite wealthy, resulting in a plated diamond necklace, and gently used but excellent quality clothing and shoes. She had traveled from Italy, and from the looks of things, traveled with the express intent to speak to Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, forgoing even checking into a hotel coming from the airport.

“My-my name is Maria Giordano.” The woman spoke slowly, slightly unsure of her English before deciding to sod it and carry on, “I do not mean to trouble you, young man, but there’s something I must ask of you.”

“Go away.” Sherlock spoke at the same time that John said, “Ask away.”

The woman nodded, tears pricking her eyes as she pulled a photograph from her purse, “A few years ago my daughter—my dear, dear daughter disappeared. I lost all hope! I thought she was dead! But then…then I saw a picture of her at a wedding. She seemed so happy and I had to come right away, I had to find her.” Ms. Giordano gave John the picture.

“I find this utterly tedious—“

“Sherlock, you’re going to have to look at this.” John interrupted, practically running to Sherlock’s perch and stuffing the picture in his hands, “Sherlock look.”

 

Present—Molly

This wasn’t the first occasion that Molly thought that her training as a pathologist and her time spent in care could create a lethal combination. She was always the best at the hypothetical how to get away with murder games because she and Sherlock had spent so much time catching the kinks in lesser plans. This accumulated experience led her to a level of quiet confidence in what she was doing. She cut off the hands and burned off the prints, making it impossible to make a proper ID from them. She buried them under a back porch thirteen miles away. Then she cut the jawbone out, scrubbing them off before placing them in her pocket. She would have to dispose the teeth at a later time. She used a shovel to smash the face to an unidentifiable pulp, and then proceeded to dig a hole and bury the rest of the German, alternating between layers of rocks and soil to make it difficult for any animal to dig it up.

The inside of Molly’s car was next. She decided to make use of going to a rougher area of Toronto, the sort of place where people looked away and were tight lipped about what they did and didn’t see, and she used a practically empty 24 hour car wash. She still wiped it down with other cleaners, years of experience and dating a blood splatter analyst finally paying off. She then smashed her windshield further with a baseball bat, and in the morning hours took it to a different station to get it fixed. Her coat looked fine unless scrutinized closely, which allowed her the time to go and find replacement clothing before she took her coat and stuffed it in a homeless man’s fire while he wasn’t looking.

Molly was tired. But pressed in her hand was a wallet with a hotel key and some credit cards and in her pocket were some hair and blood samples.

She was going to get that bloody briefcase.

Two months before—Molly

She knew Janine was full of shit. So when Molly went to Sherlock and was stopped by a long slender hand and a smug smirk, Molly already knew that she truly had the upper hand in that conversation, whether Janine knew it or not. No doubt, Janine thought that it would be a part of her fun, to poke at the shy pathologist.

“See the papers?”

“Only after I had put them in the litter box.” Molly replied lightly.

“Aren’t you going to get upset? Embarrassed? Reprimand me for this?” Janine crossed her arms and did a poor imitation of Molly, “’Oh Janine, you shouldn’t have spoken of such—intimate relations with the press.’ Please. Give me a break do you know what that—“

“Good on you for getting revenge on the man. He deserves it. That was a low blow, even for Sherlock Holmes and I’ve known him for years. That means I also know that he’d prefer fucking a corpse to fucking you. Have a nice day.”

Present—Molly

Molly had been practicing her statement for hours, going through it like clockwork. Art met her to go over it in a dingy little restaurant.

“Look Beth, you’ve got to get this right. Both our asses are on the line now and if they realize that you called me—and  I put that cell in her hand to cover for your tweaker ass—“

“I’ve got it under control, Art.” Molly hoped so, at least.

Two Months Before—Sherlock

Everything hurt. He knew that being shot wasn’t pleasant, and his rather amusing encounter with a vengeful Janine aside, he was bored. Of course, that was when Molly with her shy little footsteps came walking through the door. He had seen her in his mind palace, directing him on what to do. He didn’t know she had been such a part of it until then. The hospital had given him time to sift through facts, and there was one fact that practically screamed at him; Molly Hooper held an entire wing in his mind palace.

“You went and got yourself shot.” Molly spoke with a slight tremor in her voice, “That is definitely not allowed.”

“Sorry.” Sherlock said, and he meant it.

Molly gave a little laugh and shook her head, “Might as well buy yourself a t-shirt that says that for all the trouble you cause.”

He was forgiven. That was good. He would hate for the person with the most faith in him to never forgive him.

Present—Molly

“I need some help.”

“Again?” Felix scowled into his drink.

“I need a hat—and one of those atrocious fur coats you’ve purchased—I got to pretend I’m the German.” Molly affected the accent—it still needed a lot of work, but hopefully this would be a short job.”

Molly pulled her hair up into the wide rimmed black hat, put on the coat, and then some designer shades. “How do I look?”

“Wow, Molls, you actually look kind of hot.”

The room itself was trashed. Molly had no idea who ripped through it, but they left a strange little doll with choppy red hair similar to German’s preferred do. They had been looking for something, tearing it apart in the process and for some reason the bloody telephone kept ringing. Finally, the knocking on the door alerted her that she would have to pay for the room. The nice man was quite a bit like Steven from the bank, nice and unsuspecting. The card was on file and the briefcase was in their storage.

She had nodded when he made a comment about how awesome the party must have been.

Yeah. Sure.

Present--Sherlock

It was Molly at John and Mary’s wedding. She was wearing that bright yellow dress, laughing at something Janine was saying, one of Sherlock’s favorites—that is if he had favorites. “This is—“

“Her name is Aryanna. She just—didn’t come home one day, can you figure out where she is or—“

“I knew this woman.” Sherlock replied stiffly, “She died two months ago.”

“So she was alive all this time? Oh…oh thank God.” The woman clutched at Sherlock’s hands, both of them unintentionally wrinkling the photograph, “Thirty-three, that’s wonderful! That’s seven more years than I thought she had—oh…oh but what was she doing? Why was she here? How did you know her?”

Sherlock shook his head, the word “impossible” echoing through his mind. But then he realized something, “Do you have a picture of her from before? Full body.”

Maria nodded vigorously, fishing out a picture of a much younger woman, standing next to a tree as she stared out over a lake. She was happy, smiling carelessly and—she did not look like someone who had been pregnant a year previously. That could not have been Molly Hooper. In that moment, the dots connected. The woman lying on the table could not have been Molly Hooper because she did not bear any signs of having ever carried a child. But what was going on? Where was Molly? Why was there a woman who looked just like her dead?


	5. Instinct

Present—Molly   
Molly pulled up to the house, watching as a minivan left. This woman was Alison Hendricks, possibly the woman on the phon.e It probably wasn’t that smart to approach her directly, but Molly still didn’t hesitate to follow the woman to wherever she was going. Alison was not the woman on the phone. Molly knew that the moment she saw her as she herded her children out of the van. Molly sighed, putting her hood up and walking over to the shed where her identical disappeared into. She did not fully expect a soccer Mom to turn around and almost cleave her face open with the knife she was using to make orange slices, but Molly would like to think that after Sherlock, she could handle it.

“What the hell are—Beth are you insane? You can’t be here!

Molly decided to cut through the bullshit this time around. “Not Beth, Beth’s dead, I’m confused—well not confused, confused is not my name, I’m Molly, nice to meet you Alison, please refrain from stabbing me—good, good, well sorry, this probably wasn’t a great idea, and I know you’re not the other person—but I don’t have her contact information and I need to be able to get a hold of her—or better yet meet her because she needs those blood samples cos shit’s going down—“

“Wait Beth’s dead? How?”

“She committed suicide. Threw herself in front of a train.” Molly took a deep breath where Alison decided to finally respond.

“No—no.”The woman played with her knife with a small, sanity questioning smile, “That’s impossible, Beth wouldn’t—“

“I’m sorry.”

“Why are you dressed in her clothes?”

“Unfortunately, I’m stuck playing cop until I know what the hell is going on.”

Present—Sherlock   
Sherlock paced. There was still nothing more from Moriarty, leaving him to the Molly mystery. How could there be a girl who looked just like Molly that ended up on a slab—a girl that was identified as Molly, a girl Moriarty thought was Molly—unless he didn’t. What if it was all part of some sort of plan? What if he actually had Molly somewhere? What if—but wait. How much did Sherlock actually know about Molly Hooper?

Molly Hooper was a pathologist that worked at St Barts.

Molly Hooper was in foster care.

Molly Hooper had a child at one point.

Molly Hooper once had a fiancé (uggh, Tom, Sherlock loathed to think of that foul man, but it was a start. He could research Molly’s pregnancy and he could investigate Tom, to see if he knew anything. The odd part of that relationship was how quickly and abruptly it ended. When Sherlock commented on it later, Molly didn’t reveal what he thought she would. It had nothing to do with his returning. For some reason Sherlock found that rather disappointing. He didn’t want to examine that until he figured out where was Molly, and why did a girl named Aryanna look just like her?

Present—Felix   
Mrs. S. scowled, “She hasn’t taken an interest in her daughter’s life now why should she—“

“You know she wanted to do the best for Kira.”

“She’s just—“

“She’s just not a mother. Be happy she recognized that, but listen to me right now, Kira might be in danger.”

“…if we need to tear down and torch, just give me the word, you hear me? I’ll not have that girl get hurt because of the stupid things her mother’s gotten involved in.” Mrs. S. sighed, suddenly looking a lot older than before. If it weren’t for the fact that it wasn’t Molly’s fault, he’d be cursing her for making their foster mother worry so much.

Present—Sherlock   
“…I was asked to watch Molly. I’m pretty sure she figured out I was and that’s why she broke the engagement. Used you as a reason…but I knew the instant she sat down that she knew.”

“Why were you asked to watch Molly? For what purpose?”

“I don’t know. They just paid me and I did as they said—but I stopped reporting so closely after a while—cos I liked her. I liked her a lot and now she’s dead and what am I going to do? She was actually properly nice…but I have something that can help you.” Tom pulled out a file folder, “I started wondering who I was working for. Didn’t find out much, but I found the man who used to watch her before me. A guy named Brook.” He noticed Sherlock’s face, “No! Not the same! I checked. Don’t worry, unfortunate coincidence there.”

Present—Molly   
“You’ve got a—what the hell are you doing with that?”

“If you wake my children, I will shoot you.”

“Huh? If you shoot me you’ll wake your children—“

“Do you want to take the chance?”

Molly sighed, “Okay, so what’s up?”

“She might be better at explaining than me.” Alison replied, sounding quite exasperated.  
Another identical, this one wearing looser clothes and—dreadlocks? Molly with dreadlocks? It…it didn’t look half bad, if Molly got out of this and managed to live a normal life again, she might be brave enough to try that.

“Hi. I’m Cosima.”

…Is that Asian?

Two months before—Molly   
Molly sat across the table from Tom, perfectly happy playing house with him—or so she wanted him to believe. She used to think that if she reached certain goals in life, she would finally be able to relax and be normal—but Tom proved her wrong, just like all the others had. So silently, she slid the ring across the table with a small smile. His confusion was evident and Molly could sympathize to an extent. From his perspective, everything was going wonderful. They were engaged, they had a spot picked out, they were going to be married. All these little “to be”s ran through her head as his expression contorted in all sorts of ways. She bent her head.

“I’m sorry. I don’t like liars.”

Mainly because I’m the worst of them all.

Present—Molly   
“The German’s dead, what did you do with her?”

“I disposed of her. I’m assuming she was careful to keep this all a secret; therefore no one will come looking for her. If they do, they’ll put hounds on her scent and even if they had something for the dogs to smell, they’ll still trace it to a hard to get to body that has had all identifying factors removed, like prints and teeth. The teeth are still with me until I can get rid of them properly, and by the time they start a search for the body it will have decomposed beyond easy recognition and no viable DNA sample will be found—right off the back anyway. Honestly if she’s found we’re screwed, but at this moment there’s little chance of it.” Molly mentally ticked off her checklist as she looked at the identical faces staring at her.

Alison’s face was contorted in disgust and horror, while Cosima wore a more neutral if not curious expression, “What did you do before identity snatching became your norm?” She asked casually, as if the world they knew hadn’t come down around them.

“I was a forensic pathologist.”

“Oh…wow…useful.” She nodded, “But we really needed a cop. Beth was tracing—“

“I can still be a cop.” Molly spoke without thinking, “I’ll be back on duty soon and I’ve been getting a crash course from hell—police procedure isn’t something I’m entirely unfamiliar with and I’ve seemed to trick her partner completely—for the most part. This is—this was not expected.”  
Present—Felix   
Felix paced back and forth outside. He hated Molly for putting him into this situation. He really and truly wanted to throttle her. How could he be backup? Why the hell did she need backup anyway? It wasn’t as if—oh dear lord, why did she ever have to befriend that git? It was all his fault they were there. It was his fault they were pretending Molly was dead, and Molly was racing around like a bloody secret agent right out of a bad B movie. This was even worse than the movie though, because when the end credits rolled around, at least he could get up, stretch, and forget all about it but no, this was real life, and with real life came real stakes. 

“Who are you?”

Suddenly there was a woman with a gun in his face, a woman that looked just like Molly, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, don’t shoot I’m—“  
“Alison! Alison he’s with me, he’s my brother.” Molly was there, suddenly forcing her to put down the gun. Alison took a few deep and shaky breaths before Molly did something completely unexpected. She slapped her, “If you ever point a gun at my brother again, I’ll knock the living shite out of you.”

Present—Molly   
“So why are you pretending to be Beth? Are you some sort of con artist? Like a grifter or something?” Cosima asked, sounded far more interested—and much less paranoid than Alison. Felix and Alison were studiously avoiding each other, while glancing every now and then with a snobbish sniff.

“No—no it was impulse…I wanted to save my own skin. There was no time to think—then I had to—and now I’m here. I’m not sure what was worse; dealing with a psychotic criminal mastermind wanting to kill me for throwing a wrench into his scheme to destroy a friend of mine in his entirety or dealing with an unknown group or groups of people who decided to create human clones, one of which is me, who some other person who may or may not be affiliated with a group, is killing off one by one. Great. Let’s hope Moriarty doesn’t figure this one out anytime soon. I don’t think I could deal with both knowing.” Molly put her head between her knees, “Bloody hell, does Sherlock actually enjoy stuff like this?”

“Sherlock—Moriarty—that detective ohhh.” Cosima grinned, “You know some pretty weird people, Molly Hooper, dead girl from London.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Weird—helpful people.”

Molly’s head jerked up and she made eye contact, all without thinking about it, and her voice grew harsh, “No. He cannot be distracted. If he thinks I’m alive and I need help with a mystery he’ll try to do this and the Moriarty problem at once and will be more likely to fail and this time he won’t have the help of my element of surprise. He’ll also accidentally reveal me to Moriarty, which will simply add another—“

“It’s not about you, Molly, it’s about us. We are being killed off. We are clones, genetic identical—“ Alison’s protest at the C-word emerged in the background—“And this is our problem.”

“Which is why we are not going to get Sherlock Holmes involved. We’re not exactly a stupid bunch, we can figure this out. I mean hell, we’ve all been through higher education and had—or have, demanding careers…and I do still have a couple tricks up my sleeve—uggh that sounded stupid. Anyway, we can do this without getting my schizoid borderline sociopathic friend and his arch nemesis involved.”

Present—Cosima   
Cosima frowned at the computer screen. Molly Hooper was a good person—an incredibly smart one too—but Cosima knew that they needed help, and what better avenue than Sherlock Holmes? With a sigh, she wrote the final word of the puzzle in the encrypted email, and hit send.

Present--Kira  
Kira was painting a picture. Mrs. S. was always nice enough to bring her lots and lots of paper when she went to the store, along with paint and crayons. She was painting a picture of Mummy, despite the fact that she hadn’t seen her in such a long time. Mrs. S. always said it was for Kira’s protection, but Kira missed her nonetheless. She could tell that her mom had come by. That smell was on the chair. Mrs. S. wouldn’t say anything though, so she kept the thought to herself. If Mummy wanted to see her, Mummy would.  
“Working on another portrait of your mum?” Mrs. S. kneeled down and squeezed Kira’s shoulders.

“Yes. Mummy’s coming home.”

“…you may be right about that, monkey.”

Present--Sherlock

Dear Sherlock Holmes,

I’m aware that you have much better things to do than this, but if you’re bored, can you tell me what this means? My seven year old wrote it. She’s a bit of a prodigy.

Of the age of sunset hues,  
The world was her great muse,  
My sweet Molly touched my face,  
Her hand Is soft and I feel so Alive.   
The winds of Toronto are so fierce,  
But I can forget when she is Here,  
So sweet, so gentle, like a light,  
Not even dying at night.  
Sincerely,   
Ted Ashburn.

Within moments, Sherlock found the true meaning behind a silly poem in a well encrypted and untraceable email.  
Molly Is Alive Toronto.

Present—Molly   
The constant paranoia was something that Molly could live without—that grating horrible feeling that people were watching, waiting for her to trip up at any given moment. It was tiresome, and she couldn’t even stop when she returned to Beth’s house to meet…Paul. It may have been the paranoia, it may have been the working alongside Sherlock, it may have been the feeling of absolute fear that coursed through her, almost separately from the paranoia somehow…but Paul didn’t seem right. She wanted to figure out what was up with him, somehow.

“What is up with you? You’re getting home at weird times, you’re wearing—that” The ‘that’ he was referring to was a band T-Shirt Molly found for ten bucks while desperately looking for new clothes after disposing of a body. “And you’re just not being well, you.” Paul gestured towards her entirely.

“I’m just—I feel—“

“Are you taking the pills again?”

“No—no Paul. I’m not going back there.”

“Well that’s just it then” He came forward and rested his hands on her shoulders, making Molly shudder involuntarily beneath his strong touch, “You’re finally starting to feel things again.”

“It’s weird…” Molly pretended to admit, running a hand through her hair, realizing she could get a little bit of her frustration out at that moment, “I’m sorry, I’ve been a right mess, I’m just…I’m just trying. That’s all. I’ve been reinstated!”

“That’s good, but if you need to take more time—“

“No. No. I should go back to work. That’d be best, wouldn’t it?”

“…fine. But just talk to me, Beth.”

“I—It’s hard.” Molly pushed him away and rubbed her forehead.

“You can’t be all hot and cold on me like this. It’s insane and confusing, Beth. You can’t just do that to me.”

You can’t be like that, though. You can’t be Paul the intelligent and confusing man, you have to be a part of the scenery, part of Beth’s life and entirely separate from mine.  
Molly shook her head and walked away, trying to clear her mind of everything except for the task at hand: surviving. She had a lot more to worry about now. There was a sniper offing her and her genetic identical, Moriarty hanging over her head, she still had the god damned teeth in her pocket, and she was meant to go back to work soon. There was only one small problem with that part of the plan: Molly had absolutely no idea how to use a gun.


	6. Paradoxical, Yet True

Present—Kira  
When something had changed, Kira could tell. Mrs. S. hadn’t told her mother that Kira knew for some reason. She said it made her feel more comfortable or something along those lines. It didn’t stop her from writing those letters and receiving lots of replies and encouragement from the woman who couldn’t be there for her. Apparently, Molly wanted Mrs. S to tell Kira that she was her sister. Yet Kira knew—she just knew that something was up. Something strange had happened and there was a shift in the house.  
“Mrs. S…what’s going on?”  
“…your mummy will be coming to see you.” Mrs. S replied, looking up from her book, “She wants to see you. I’m going to let her.”  
“She was the woman that came earlier right? The one you made me go upstairs for?”  
“Yes, Kira…my foster daughter.”  
“And not my big sister.”  
Mrs. S. sighed heavily, “No Kira, she’s not your sister.”  
Kira felt a level of excitement building. Her mother was always so pretty and always so sweet and kind in her letters but she wanted her mother to be her mummy and be kind to her in real life, not just through words where she could easily lie.  
20 years before  
“Molly, hurry up.”   
“I’m working on it!” She hissed right back, slipping the bobby pin and skeletal key into the lock and opening it after hearing a few of the right clicks. The contents of the refrigerator were suddenly theirs for the taking, no longer under lock and key and key.  
“What do you want?” Molly hissed.  
“I don’t care.” Felix replied, his stomach growling, “Quick! Someone’s coming!”  
Molly grabbed the first things she saw and dashed after him, barely moving out of sight of Mrs. Logan in time. They had left Teddy’s hat in the kitchen, hoping that she would think that he took it instead. Molly hated Teddy anyway.   
Looking back on that moment, she wondered if that was the first indicator that she could be far more ruthless when the situation called for it, than anyone would ever give her credit for. No…it happened later.   
Present—Molly   
“Oh. My. God.” Felix grasped at his hair and then his ears, miming ripping it out—of course he wouldn’t, that was his precious hair after all—and turned towards Molly, “What the hell? What the hell is that? What’s going on?”  
“Genetically identical.” Molly murmured to herself, “It makes sense…more makes sense now but—it’s strange.”  
“What is?”  
“Obviously we were all grown in test tubes and placed in surrogates, right? Well most of those surrogates seemed to be from good families—you know, money, class, not likely to be anything other than normal—.”  
“So?”  
“So they would want to do that ahead of time. They would research the people thoroughly and try to place us in homes that were different but still stable—an experiment is dead once things aren’t identical or once anyone knows so they would al be kept in the dark. They just know that they were getting children that they wanted—maybe not even that. They would want to study nurture vs. nature on top of whether or not there could be clones without some of the deadlier side effects.”  
“W-wait, deadly?”  
“Most of the shit I know about cloning is ages behind an experiment of this level. It was mostly done on sheep and occasionally dogs. They were subjected to shortened life spans, overgrown cells, cancer, infertility—“  
“Okay! Okay! I’ve heard enough. Just don’t go all exorcist vomiting on me and it’ll all be fine.” Felix took a deep breath, “So…what do we do?”  
Molly felt almost blindsided by that question, “…so…eventually Moriarty will figure out who Kira is. If he cares that is. As far as he knows, I’m still dead…unless Sherlock knows. That could ruin it…but for now I just need to keep hidden from him and figure out who wants to kill us and why—on top of that I need to figure out where I came from.”  
“…but we know that. You’re David and Angela Hooper’s daughter. It’s the records—“  
“No, Felix. I’m afraid that one isn’t so simple. In the meantime, you need to continue business as usual and keep Kira and Mrs. S out of this.”  
“Aye aye! Ma’am!”  
“Don’t do that.” Molly sighed, smiling despite herself.  
Present—Sherlock  
Molly was alive. She was in Toronto. It made sense, why the hell hadn’t he thought of it sooner? John, however, seemed slow on this new bit of information.  
“Molly threw herself in front of a train—Sherlock we saw the body—“  
“That wasn’t Molly!” Sherlock could have jumped up and down in glee, “That’s the beauty of it! It must have been the Italian girl that woman was on about—“ John winced at his no doubt callous words but Sherlock didn’t want to linger on what he could have possibly said wrong. “She’s in Canada—Toronto to be exact! That’s where her foster mother lives now and where her foster brother happened to go! It all makes sense—“  
“Don’t you think you’re letting your feelings—“  
“Feelings? What feelings? I knew there had been something off about it—“  
John gave him a pointed look and Sherlock knew that the man didn’t believe him but Sherlock didn’t care. Molly was alive and hopefully safe. He had to find her. There were so many thing he had a desire to say but didn’t know where he could possibly begin. He always seemed to say the exact wrong thing to her but she always loyally stuck around. Something as simple as Moriarty couldn’t keep his pathologist from coming back. Molly—clever, brilliant, wonderful Molly—had managed to outsmart the greatest minds she had ever encountered as simply as it had been a routine autopsy. She even managed to provide a body she didn’t have to bludgeon the face of for an identification.   
“Then how did she do it?” John asked, “And how could she have known that Aryanna would be at the stop at the same time—“  
“Moriarty had someone cut the cameras, probably so we couldn’t see her face or any warnings she would make. Aryanna was likely on there by coincidence.”  
“Sherlock….” John had a warning tone at what Sherlock was implicating but possibly ignoring, “How then, did another woman end up in Molly’s place so conveniently?”   
Sherlock didn’t particularly like what John was implying. It wasn’t likely that Molly was a killer—it couldn’t be, it simply wasn’t in her makeup. Then again, she was desperate and such an opportunity wasn’t easily passed over by a desperate woman, “Perhaps the woman leapt in front of the train of her own volition.”   
Twenty years before  
Sherlock Holmes was not a well liked child. He was quite aware of this fact but couldn’t help the little twinge of disappointment he felt. School was always something that he waited for to be over in absolute agony. It was always the same except for tiny differences that seemed to make it bearable for everyone else. No one wanted to be friends with Sherlock Holmes and Sherlock felt like they were all idiots. It really wasn’t a surprise to anyone that one day, when he was fifteen years old, he decided to skip for the first time.  
Beyond deciding not to go to school, he didn’t have any particular destination in mind. He wandered from the building to a nearby bus stop and boarded it with no particular destination in mind. People, none more interesting than the next, boarded and then got off at various places. He ended up getting out at a seedier part after hours of riding and found himself in a place he had never seen before. People obviously under the influence of one drug or another stumbled around him and groups of boys around his age eyed him. It was obvious from his posh school uniform to his stature that he didn’t belong there at all. Yet Sherlock didn’t belong anyway so he didn’t let that stop him from proceeding.  
“Are you lost?” A girl asked him, crossing her arms over her silly kitty jumper, “That school’s all the way that way.” She pointed.  
“And how would you know?” Sherlock sneered, automatically trying to armor himself.  
“I ride the bus around sometimes.” She shrugged.  
She couldn’t have been older than twelve, “Your parents let you ride the bus around?”  
“My parents are dead.” There was no sadness, she simply continued to smile up at him, “I’m in care right now.”  
That bright smile couldn’t hide anything though. He could see quite plainly that she wasn’t treated well. He couldn’t very well bring himself to care too much on the matter, if it weren’t for the next words that fell out of her mouth.  
“I have to go. Fe told me there was a dead bloke fished out of the sewer this morning and stuff is still there. I wanna see.”  
She dashed off before Sherlock could ask anything more of her. It was a memory that he thought shouldn’t have stuck with him over time but for some reason it surfaced every time he thought of Molly Hooper. In fact, he never got the opportunity to ask her if she happened to be the little Brixton girl that ran off to find a body before he could learn more about her. It would have made sense considering her profession and her upbringing.  
Present—Molly  
She sat anxiously, looking around the decent home that Mrs. S created for herself so far away from Brixton. There was no reason not to come anymore. Molly figured that her life had been torn to shit anyway. Actually acknowledging her daughter like a big girl was a start. There had been so much that she screwed up on and this one was the biggest mistake of her life. Kira walked in, looking just like her pictures: A cute little girl that got her father’s golden hair but her own dark eyes and a rounded face that would either remain or be tapered into a fine point. She held herself proudly and regarded the woman before her with a mixture of suspicion and excitement.  
Molly smiled, “You know who I am, don’t you, Kira? I’m sure there were pictures. And Mrs. S was certainly against lying to you.” Molly knew the instant Mrs. S told her that she did as Molly bade that she was lying. She knew the woman too well for such deceptions.   
The spell was broken and suddenly Kira had launched herself in her mother’s waiting arms.  
“Kira darling, I’m your mum.” Molly said after a moment, wondering why on earth she could have ever rejected her—actually she knew why. She didn’t consider herself worthy of being a good mother at all. She wasn’t even that great of a person.  
“…I know.”  
“I know that you know. I just felt the need to say it once.” Molly ran her hair through Kira’s hair, noting its softness. She really did look just like her father. At that thought, Molly felt her cheer fade a little. A reunion was the last thing she needed—but he did live in Canada so that should be held as a possibility—as a last resort more likely.  
Kira nodded, “Mrs. S said that you had to stop seeing me because of dangerous people and then we had to move here.”  
“Yeah, Kira. Some very, very bad people are after me. They are people I have to stop. People I might have to hide you from.”  
“Again?”  
“Yes.” Molly felt bad but since that story was suddenly true, she didn’t feel so bad about not being able to explain to her daughter that she simply panicked at the prospect of being a mother but wanted to keep her close.  
“Can I call you ‘mum’ then?” Kira asked, “It sounds much more grownup than ‘Mummy’ you see.”  
Molly thought on it for a moment, “I think I’d like that very much, Kira…so would you like me to start trying to buy your love with a bit of ice cream?”  
Present—Moriarty  
Sherlock Holmes had a weak mind constantly occupied by the dead pathologist. Moriarty didn’t think that he would be so silly as to abandon the game entirely. He was no longer playing by the rules, no longer wanting to prove himself cleverest of them all. It was so utterly boring that he found himself at a loss for how to gain the consulting detective’s attention. If he had realized just how important Molly Hooper was to the game at hand, he wouldn’t have made the foolish woman jump. But she did and as promised, he bestowed a large sum onto the gay prostitute.   
As predicted, the streetwise idiot took the money and ran.  
What Moriarty didn’t expect was how quickly he was able to make the money disappear into thin air. It was likely that he found a way to quickly segment and launder the money, keeping a fairly large sum around his name but the rest wasn’t accounted for so easily.   
It seemed that Felix Dawkins was either smarted than originally expected (doubtful) or had a clever criminal lay.  
In the end, he decided to settle among the Toronto art community just as predicted. Humans could be such bothersome and silly creatures, now couldn’t they? Nothing ever surprised him anymore.  
Present—Sherlock  
He broke into Molly’s flat again. They were going to clear everything out soon enough but he wanted to make sure that he had every clue that he could possibly need beforehand. Everything was exactly as it was before, and before that when he stayed at her flat out of necessity after his fall. He went to the kitchen and decided to heat a pot of tea while he rooted through her drawers. It was, after all, an enormous waste of excellent and rather expensive tea. Now that he had figured out it wasn’t Molly’s body, he felt a level of relaxation. It was as if he hadn’t breathed since the moment he learned that Molly supposedly killed herself. Really, all he wanted was her tea, in her flat, surrounded by her smell—even if it was getting a bit stale in musty. There really wasn’t any reason for him to be there.  
It was amongst receipts that he found something particularly interesting, heavily sentimental, and wholly engaging. Sherlock sat down slowly, untying the bundle of papers varying from kindergarten wide lines with dotted medians to more sophisticated wide ruled and the occasional stationary.  
Dear mummy,  
S says she’s my mummy but you were my mummy once. but I can still writ to you. Is that ok? I kno you are busy. I drew you a pictur.  
Love Kira.  
Dear mummy,  
I want you to come see me. I got a part in a play. I get to sing. Ms. S. says I got that from you. I know your to busy to see me but I thoght I’d ask anyway. There’s a boy at school who pulls my hair. I think he likes me or hates me. I can’t decide. Thank you for the atlas. I like knowing where you are. I circled London with a big red marker.  
Love Kira.  
Molly’s daughter had been writing to her with increasing frequency since she learned to write, it seemed. The child was very intelligent but puzzled by Molly’s existence and distance. The fact that Molly kept such a correspondence with her adopted daughter was nothing short of…Molly. Kira’s pictures were all very rudimentary but slowly improving with age as well as her grammar and sentence structure. Sherlock gathered up the letters and placed them in his pocket. It seemed that Toronto was where he would be going next.


	7. Origin of the Species

resent—Molly

The bartender grinned at Molly, when she came in, "Twins! Okay, let me guess, you're the wild one." He pointed at Molly, "and you're the smart one."

Both Cosima and Molly grinned at that, Molly running a hand through her admittedly messy hair in response to him. Even when not playacting as Beth, she did her best not to look like Molly, instead opting for an edgier grunge look that bordered on what Mrs. S. would have referred to as "slutty." Molly didn't mind though. It provided a tiny bit of security—most of which was perceived of course, but it was security all the same. It was what allowed her to sleep a little bit every night.

"Would it surprise you if we were genetically identical?" Molly asked him, cocking her head to the side and grinning.

"Not one bit—" The man's eyes were roving over her breasts and then flitting over to Cosima. No doubt, the scenario could provide the man with a fantasy or two.

"Whiskey on the rocks, please." She turned quickly to Cosima, and lowered her voice as the bartender went to fix the drink, "Here's your briefcase." Molly shoved it over to her, "Blood samples, documents of birth—death dates for a lot of them—this is insanely huge. I seriously don't know if I want to be part of it."

"You're part of it whether or not you want to be. You could leave tomorrow and it will still be your problem." Moly knew that. She was overtly aware of that, but seeming too eager might raise suspicions, "We need a cop. It can be your problem and you're doing something about this shit. It provides many advantages." Cosima shrugged, lightheartedly swirling the wine in her glass, "Please?"

Molly shrugged, "Sadly this is far too interesting for me to resist. There's a bit of a problem though. I have no idea how to shoot a gun."

"None?"

"I'm English. I can fire a hunting rifle but that's about—"

"Alison can teach you."

"Huh? Why not you?"

"Dude, peace and love. Do I look like the sort that would know how?"

Molly rolled her eyes, "Anyway, here's the suitcase, be careful with these blood samples, I'm pretty sure a fair number of those subjects are dead now."

"I'm a geneticist. An evolutionary biologist. I think I know how to handle cell samples."

"I know. But we really only get a few goes at seeing." Molly was mostly worried about genetic illnesses or especially side effects of being made from cloned tissue but she decided not to express said worry too quickly. There was still so much she didn't know and she wanted to keep her cluelessness in check.

Present—Sherlock

"We can't just go to Toronto Canada, Sherlock!" John practically shouted, gesturing wildly at the man and to his brother, who remained ever the calm and stoic character.

"I don't see a reason why we can't." Sherlock frowned like a scolded child, crossing his arms.

"If Molly was alive, she would have contacted us by now. You're being—"

"Being what?" Sherlock cut Mycroft off.

"Sentimental."

"I'm not being sentimental—I knew—I knew that wasn't Molly and I didn't do anything about it. That was sentiment, Watson—that was—that was stupidly human and goldfishlike and it is not a mistake I will make again. I'm going to Toronto."

"But why would she not contact you, Sherlock?" Mycroft asked and for that, Sherlock had no answer.

If Molly was alive and in Toronto, why didn't she reach out to him for help?

Present—Molly

Molly squared herself up and did exactly as Alison said, firing and knocking the can right off the ledge.

"So." She asked after she finished firing, "Do you actually think they're killing us off?"

"What else could it be? We're lab rats in someone's experiment and now they're killing us to over their tracks."

"That doesn't seem like an adequate motivation though." Molly murmured, cursing Sherlock for not allowing her to think as simply as Alison could. It would probably save them all in the end.

"I don't care. All I know is that I have to defend my children."

"I get that." Molly nodded, feeling a swell of pride overcome her at how Kira turned out. It wasn't the sort of "pat on the back, you didn't fuck up" pride, but the pride she felt that despite majorly screwing everything up, Kira turned out fine all the same. "So." She reloaded and shot, "I suppose it's time to be badass then."

Present—Mycroft

His silly younger brother didn't seem to realize what someone as insignificant as Molly Hooper did: If he went to find her, Moriarty would find her as well. That oversight aside, he had practically everyone beneath him scouring the UK for any trace of the criminal without any avail. If it weren't for the fact that Sherlock caught him on tape the time James Moriarty decided to have tea at his flat, Mycroft would argue that there was no way that he couldn't have done it.

Of course Molly Hooper was alive.

He only missed it because he filed her in the wrong place but upon further examination, it was obvious that her death had been faked and the body that had been cremated was not her. If it had been anyone else, Mycroft would have been more thorough in his examination but he couldn't stoop to research every suicide in the world. Really, he only should have noticed all the details because she was one of Sherlock's goldfish.

Although, it seemed that she could be likened more to that dog he adored.

Present—Molly

Art seemed satisfied with her performance at the range. Molly hated the sense of helplessness she had to have before she would ever be forced to pick up a gun. That moment was there. It enveloped her with a sense of panic that she had to quash every day when she rolled over and realized that the man in her bed was a stranger and that she was playing the part of Beth Childs. Every day, the act became more and more flawless and Molly wondered where the sweet woman who got coffee for her crush at the morgue went and if she would ever be able to come back.

"We're going out." Art's voice sounded far away, "There's been a report."

The report led her to an abandoned hideout that was decorated with the same redheaded dolls and strange drawings that the hotel room Katja's briefcase was in. She looked around for a moment before she heard the gunshot. It hit the wall beside Art's head and suddenly he was gripping his ear, yelling at Molly—no not Molly—Beth to chase after the person who just shot at them.

Molly glanced around and sighed heavily before pursuing the hooded figure as they disappeared into a construction site. She paused, catching her breath and looked around the abandoned shithole with a level of apprehension.

"What the hell?" Molly was suddenly tackled from the side, slung painfully across the gravel that was all too common on a construction sight.

Her attacker pulled her hood down and much to Molly's surprise, the homicidal maniac that was currently straddling her was a mirror image. A genetic identical, a clone.

"Goodbye, Elizabeth Childs." She said in heavily accented broken English.

"I'm not Beth!" Molly screamed, "I'm not Beth—" She felt around for something, anything, "I'm not Beth!"

"Not Beth?" The killer seemed to hesitate with her knife.

"NO!" Molly found a length of rebar and impaled her with it, pushing her off of her and running as fast as she could.

At some point she slammed into Art, gasping for breath. "Holy shit." Molly gasped for breath, trying to calm her almost completely fried nerves, her hands trembling from the adrenaline. "Holy, holy, shit."

She wandered through the questioning in a dreamlike state until Art mentioned that she should call Paul to take her home. As if Paul were really her caring boyfriend, Molly dialed his number and pressed the phone up against her ear before she remembered that he wasn't. Before she could hang up, however, she heard the gruff, "Hello? Beth?"

"Hi—yeah," Molly gave a short giggle before continuing, "I've well—I need a ride home. Dipshit's orders. I'm at the station now."

"What happened?"

"Oh…it was just a report, went a bit off script, that's all."

"Are you all right?"

"Yeah—yes! Art's just being that way."

"I'll be right there."

"Yeah see you soon."

"Bye."

It seemed that Paul and Beth had issues long before Beth flung herself in front of a London train. Molly could only hope that the estrangement they had would simply make her behavior seem normal. Paul pulled up and Molly climbed into his SUV without a word, curling up against herself to watch the other cars as they passed. Paul didn't say anything at first. Then, abruptly, he spoke.

"We could go to Rio…remember planning that?"

Molly shrugged, and nothing more was said.


	8. Variations

Present—Molly  
“So there’s this clone, yeah? One of us is the one killing us.” Molly spoke without preamble, putting her head in her hands as she spoke to Alison.  
“…What can I do?” Alison asked simply.  
Molly liked that about her. Despite her suburban nature and her strange tendencies and particularities, Alison was hyper focused and hyper aware. She would be helpful. It seemed that all of the clones were of her intelligence, it was simply developed differently based on lifestyle. If Molly had been one of the scientists working on the project, she would have been fascinated. But it wasn’t so nice to be one of the lab rats, especially with the complications involving being knocked off like mobsters.  
“Just be prepared.” Molly nodded to her, rubbing her temples, “This is just too much. Faking dead, basically to avoid an ex boyfriend, figuring out I’m a clone—in hindsight things make a lot more sense—getting reunited with my daughter—“  
“You mentioned her before.” Alison nodded thoughtfully, “Where does she come in?”  
“What?”  
“She’s not your biological daughter, is she?”  
“She’s mine.” Molly shook her head, “I’m an awful mother….”  
“Why didn’t you mention that before?”  
“Wh—“  
“I thought we were all sterile. It’s part of the clone thing—“  
“Some subjects of cloning can have offspring.” Molly shrugged, “I suppose I’m the exception to our batch. There might be one other.” She shook her head, as Alison’s head looked like it was about to explode, “We’ll talk about this later, yeah?”  
Present—Sherlock  
It took precisely two days, four hours, and fifteen minutes to convince John that they would go to Toronto. Without any word from Moriarty, they had to assume he was planning something, and frankly Sherlock thought it might throw the Consulting Criminal off if he randomly left the comforts of London. He had to find Molly. He had to be right, no matter how much John and Mycroft thought that he was trying too hard and finding evidence that wasn’t there, he knew Molly. She was far more clever than anyone would ever give her credit for and he wasn’t going to leave her alone. He wanted her home where she belonged, in the morgue where she belonged. He would take her to Baker Street for her safety and increase her security detail so that such a close call couldn’t happen ever again.  
She couldn’t be lost to him.  
So he boarded an airplane for a red eye flight with a grumpy doctor/blogger tailing behind him. Sherlock was already formulating a number of plans, excitement coursing through him at the prospect of being right of winning of—of Molly being alive. He didn’t know what he would say to her. Would he mention her cleverness in faking her death? Would he berate her for not telling him? Was he at all resentful that it took this long for him to figure it out? She was probably going to be scared and reluctant to come back to London.  
“Sherlock. Sherlock. Sherlock? Sherlock!” John finally made it through, drawing Sherlock out of his mind palace.  
“Yes, John?” Sherlock was irritated. There were still so many possibilities to go over so many scenarios that were developing in his mind and he didn’t have time for idle chatter.  
“What is Molly to you?”  
“She’s my pathologist, John, a very important—“  
“No. I’ve never seen you act this way before—Hell, I thought you were going to go on drugs again.” John shook his head, “You were sad.”  
“I was inconvi—“  
“You were devastated! And now you think she’s alive and—this is the happiest I’ve ever seen you, it even beats a nine on a case, Sherlock.”  
Sherlock slumped back into his seat, “I realized how—how it would be if I were never to see her again…in truth it wrecked my mind palace. It tore it to pieces and everything was in disorder and I couldn’t think…even when I was thinking—it wasn’t up to full capacity. It was like morphine, slowing me, but without the pleasant feeling, it was utterly sickening.”  
“That’s grief, Sherlock.”  
Sherlock nodded. Yes, it was grief. “She’s alive though. So everything’s back in order.”  
“Sherlock you don’t know—“  
“I do know. All the evidence is there.”  
“But what if something’s happened and she’s not alive or—“  
Sherlock held up his hand, shaking his head, “Just go back to that book your wife wants you to read.”  
Present—Molly  
“So this knife.” Molly held it up to the screen for Cosima to see, “is the mark of some Christian group.”  
“Yeah they’re like crazy, that mark on the handle is like the fish of creation. They likely think we are abominations—unnatural things that must be destroyed and—“  
“You’re a bit of a rambler, you know that?” Felix asked.  
“Sorry—sorry. Anyway, I’ll get to you with more when I have it.” Cosima turned off her camera.  
“So.” Felix wrapped an arm around his foster sister, “So far we have the suicidal one, the eccentric, the soccer mom, and the psycho killer. My crazy step sister is almost sane in comparison.”  
“Makes sense.” Molly shrugged, leaning forward, “I’m going to try to find her—why do you think they’d use one of us to kill us if they hate us so much?”  
“I’m not sure.”  
Present—John  
John was still worried about Sherlock when they landed but the man seemed like he was on a mission and couldn’t be swayed. It was like a case for him, with an added level of sentiment that was almost the equivalent to cocaine. Sherlock likely literally wouldn’t sleep until he found Molly. John, however, was not built of the same stuff as Sherlock.  
“We need to get a hotel room, Sherlock.” John finally snapped, “And food. NOW.”  
Sherlock rolled his eyes at him, “Fine.”  
That was how he ended up waking to a sight he probably shouldn’t have been privy too. He felt as if he was violating privacy watching as Sherlock hunched over a picture. John could barely see it, but he knew what it was and where it was from. It was Sherlock and Molly, standing next to each other and discussing decomposition in depth when Mary decided to snap a picture. They were standing so close to each other that Molly had to look almost straight up and Sherlock almost straight down. John didn’t know how he obtained the picture but it was obviously a cherished belonging.  
“Please, Molly. Please be alive.”  
John was definitely not supposed to be awake at that moment.  
Present—Molly

Molly walked slowly, following the trail of blood without any reservation. The splatter patterns were obvious, pointing out where someone snuck into the house, performed self surgery, and left once she assured the child that she was not a threat. Molly stiffened when the boy pointed at Molly for a reference as to how the perpetrator looked. It was strange, all very strange, and Molly was frightened that Art would start trying to put the pieces together.   
Molly followed the coordinates on the childish fortune teller that Helena gave the child (she hid it before Art could see, but just barely) to a bare apartment. It was there that Helena sat, her arms aloft towards the lights as Molly approached from behind.   
“Why did you bring me here?” Molly asked.  
“Maggie Chen was my friend.” Her look alike replied, “All the sheep must go to slaughter but before they gather—God will watch over them—we have a connection—tell me we do—I’m dying—I think I’m dying.” She babbled only to be cut short by Molly.  
“What’s your name?”  
“Helena—“  
“Beth? Beth?” Shit. It was Art.  
Molly aimed her gun at Helena once before shaking her head and lowering it “Go! Go now!”  
“Thank you, sister.” Helena replied climbing out the window.  
Molly let Art in, waiting for the attack that was most definitely coming, “Beth what the hell are you thinking? This is Maggie Chen’s old apartment—why are you? Beth you have to get over this.”  
Molly nodded, “I’m sorry…we should go shouldn’t we?”  
“Definitely.” I don’t know what the hell is going on with you but it needs to stop.”  
She nodded again, not knowing what else to do.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a major undertaking I decided to begin and it's been in my head for a while. It wasn't until someone else practically gave Orphan Black/Sherlock as a prompt that I thought that maybe other people might find it interesting. I'm mixing up some elements of Orphan Black in order to avoid any real spoilers so go ahead and read if you haven't seen it...oh dear we're already at the end notes.


End file.
